Peru Chiclayo Mission 9/2013-9/2015

Monday, April 27, 2015

So this week nothing much happened so sorry if this letter ends up being a
really short one..

The best thing that happened to us this week is that we got water
back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is hard to describe with words how happy we were!! It
came back on Friday morning which is our weekly planning day and so we took a
little bit of that time to take a real shower after 26 days of not taking a
shower!! We also ended up cleaning up the bathroom finally!! It is such a nice
feeling to take a real shower and to have a clean room and especially a clean
bathroom! I will now try not take water for granted ever again!! So during the
time when we didn't have water we were given basically two buckets every two days
for the whole almost 4 weeks. With that water we had to flush the toilet and
take showers and wash our hands and everything like that.. So to flush the
toilet we just poured the water in the toilet and with a little bottle washed
our hands.. To shower we put some water in a bucket and with a cut in half two
liter bottle just poured it on us.. It was not a very fun process and you never
felt truly clean after that.. So were super happy we have water back now!!!
Hopefully it doesn't go out again!!

So anyways since nothing really happened that was too interesting this week
im just going to mention some weird things or funny things or just
whatever..

So right now my companion is Elder Kasteler! Hes from Bountiful Utah and
hes 18 years old.. He makes me feel kind of old.. haha! Anyways he a really cool
missionary and were working hard together but we also like to joke around and
have a fun so were never really stressed out which is cool! Our new district is
awesome too! Everybody is a really hard worker and the crazy thing is 7 of the 8
people are gringos.. What!? Thats kind of nuts!! Its really cool though! I'm
stoked for this next change because everyone's really cool and everyone's working
really hard!! One cool thing is that Sister Rasmussen is in my District now too!
Small world!!

So anyways in Morrope we are really having a struggle getting people to
come to church and so therefore nobody is really progressing at all! We have
knocked basically every door in Morrope now and nothing has really come of it so
we are starting round two of knocking every single door and will keep doing that
until people get tired of shutting the door on us!! Hopefully within the next
weeks we can really find some people who are going to progress!!

Some things we really like about Morrope are that, when there's water, its a
really small nice and clam town!! Almost everybody walk in the middle of the
streets including us and the cows and goats and everything and everybody
really!! Another thing that we really like is that there is a lady and her son
who walk around with a Churro cart! The churrosare these bread things fried in
oil with this type of caramel filling dipped in sugar !! They are super good and
we have been getting them lots recently! It really brightens up the day when
things aren't really going our way!!

Not much else is really happening in Morrope besides the fact that i gave a
talk on Sunday and everything is generally a little harder with a small little
branch but its a fun experience and were thrusting our sickles in with our might
and doing our best!! Were two pretty happy missionaries right now in Morrope
just trying to work our hardest!!

Thats all for now guys! I know that God will give revelation to those that
ask with a sincere heart and real intent! Love you all!!

Love,

Elder Jarman

Our reflection in a water well.

An empty lot that we have already planned to build a chapel.

Eating dinner

Our new district after playing volleyball, and there is Sister Rasmussen!

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The following is from Elder Jarman's mission president's wife's blog. The "two missionaries" were Damon and his comp elder Kastelar. "Yesterday we interviewed two missionaries who are serving in a very small town, of about 6,000 people and the whole town is without running water. The water main to the pueblito broke. A big truck with a tank comes with water about once a week and the water is rationed. The missionaries only get two buckets of water every two days in order to bathe and flush the toilet. And they say it looks and smells terrible! After their interview's, we brought them to our home to take a shower and have a bowl of fruit loops with cold milk. That is a real treat for our missionaries! I think they felt a little revived and rejuvenated. They were hoping the water would be fixed when they returned to their apartment. Everyone please keep your fingers crossed!"-Markndianna.blogspot.com

HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY ELDER JARMAN

Hey Everybody!!

So this week was kind of weird but it went pretty well after all!

Last Monday we had a pretty good but crazy day! In the morning we took a
combi over to Lambayeque and we went to this one University called Pedro Ruiz
Gallo and looked at some of the animals they had outside the university..
Something like a tiny zoo but not really.. Anyways after that we walked to this
factory called San Roque and there they make things called King Kongs they are
like the sweet that Lambayeque is known for! To be honest they really arent that
good! You can look them up and see what they are and ill bring one home but they
taste kind of like cardboard and really arent that amazing.. Anyways we went to
the factory to take a tour but they said we couldnt until 4 so we didnt end up
getting to go on the tour.. After that we went out to lunch and then we went to
a museum called Bruning and it was really pretty cool! It was all about history
of the ancient civilizations of Peru! I have pictures that ill send next week!
So all in all Monday ended up being a great day!

Tuesday we had our District meeting but we didn't manage to get the keys to
the chapel so we ended up having the meeting in the living room of the sister
pension but it was still pretty cool! After the meeting we stayed in Lambayeque
because i had to do a baptismal interview for the sisters investigator so while
we were waiting we went and just bought some little snacks in a little store
called Metro! Its the closest thing to a super market in Lambayeque but its
super small!? All went well with the baptismal interview and she ended up
getting baptized on Saturday!

Wednesday we had our interviews with President and his wife and that took
up the whole afternoon!? We left Morrope at 3:30ish and got to the office like an
hour later and then we talked to President but only got to talk to him for like
5 minutes but it was still a spiritual experience and at the end of our
interview he said he has a special assignment for me and my companion so we
barged in our my comps interview with Sister Williams and then President gave us
the key to him apartment and told us that he wanted us to go take showers in
his apartment and then eat some cereal at his house.. So we waited a little bit
and he and Sister Williams ended up taking us to their house and they let us
take showers and then they gave us some Fruit loops and some peanut butter and
Jelly toast and it was super good!! It was a strange experience but it was
awesome! It was super nice of President and Sister Williams for them to do that
for us! That's about all that happened on Wednesday!

Thursday was a full day of work and in the morning we just did a whole
bunch of contacts and then went back to lunch and we had Arroz con Pollo! I used
to not like arroz con pollo that much but its one of my favorites now! I guess
we just started eating it so frequently that i like it now! The foods all pretty
monotonous.. Rice and Chicken but its not too bad now that i have gotten used to
it! Anyways by the end of the day we didn't have many lessons but we did have 40
contacts!?

Friday we had weekly planning and we also had ward missionary night and
that just about took up the whole day!? For ward missionary night we watched the
movie about John Tanner and it was really good and then we played the game 20
questions with all the members and it was really cool! Everybody was getting way
into it and having tons of fun!

Saturday morning we had a ward activity but almost nobody came to played
soccer and frisbee which was a bummer! There were lots of people who said they
were coming but never ended up coming.. Saturday was a pretty long day but we
ended up having a decent day!

Sunday was a cool day! Sunday morning we started church and there were only
7 of us there!? Small numbers,, So we got to bless the sacrament which was
cool! Little by little they all started coming in too until by the end of sacrament there were like 30 members! After church we had Branch council and it
went well and after that they had me come up to the front and one by one they
all came up and shook my hand saying congrats or happy birthday or whatever and
it was kind of awkward how they all did it but it was nice! Sunday afternoon was
hard because we weren't able to get almost anything done!? Sundays everybody is
usually busy or partying or drunk or whatever!! We were contacting on Sunday and
this really drunk guy came up to us waving his hand around muttering words and he
came up and started pushing us away from this house so we just left but it was
really strange! Sunday night we went to the pension and they had us wait outside
for a couple minutes and then my companion knocked on the door and told me to
come up but i waited a second longer and so they opened up the door thinking i
knocked and all said surprise but to my companion and not to me!? Haha oops! So
yeah they ended up throwing me a little party and buying some cake and things
like that and it was really cool and then we sat there for a while playing 20 question with everybody!! Over all it was a cool day and a cool birthday and thankfully they didn't smash eggs on my head!? I think they did it out or mercy
because the fact that the water STILL HASN'T COME BACK YET!! Oh well were trying
to be patient!

Soo yeah this week went really well and was cool! I'm so grateful to be
serving a mission and having the opportunity to have so many friends here! I
know that wherever we go we may find friends in the church! Love you all!

Monday, April 13, 2015

So this past week went a
lot better than the week before besides the fact that we are still without
water... Bummer! I guess it could be worse though so were just trying to look on
the bright side until the water comes back! They are saying that it should come
back on Wednesday or around there so well be hoping that they are
right!

Tuesday was a pretty good
day i guess! What was pretty cool is that a member names Olivos came out
visiting with us the whole afternoon from 3 to 8:30ish so that was awesome! What isn't so awesome is that whenever the members come out with us everything that we
planned to do usually ends up falling through.. Its really a bummer when that
happens but after all we ended up being able to teach a couple of people and do
some contacts!

Wednesday was one of our
best days that we have had this week and this whole transfer! We didnt go out
with a member on Wednesday but it still ended up being a great day! We had 6
other lessons with some of our investigators and we were able to do a lot of
contacts and find a couple new people to teach which was pretty
cool!

Thursday we were able to
go out visiting again the whole afternoon with Hermano Olivos which was awesome!
Olivos works one week the whole week and the next week only like two days so
when he doesnt work he comes out visiting with us a lot! Hes only got a year and
a half as a member of the church but hes awesome! Thursday was a pretty good day
and we were able to visit the majority of the people that we had planned to
visit!

Friday morning we had the
zone meeting with the whole zone and that was the first time that i had seen all
the missionaries in our zone in the whole transfer!? The training went well and
we were able to learn some cool things and another cool thing is that for my
B-day the zone leaders bought a cake to share and they sung me happy birthday
and everything and it was pretty fun! After the zone meeting i was going to do a
baptismal interview for the sister in the district but while we were waiting for
the investigator to show up the sister called her and she didnt end up being
able to come so we ended up just going back to Morrope but by that time we only
had like 3ish hours left to go proselyting so we were able to do a whole bunch
on Friday..

Saturday we had another
awesome day! In the morning we went out and did a whole bunch of contacts!? We
ended up doing like 30 contacts in just the morning! When we got to lunch we
found out that a member of the ward named Alex had gotten hit by a moto taxi and
the moto taxi had cut open both of his heels really deep and they took him to
the hospital and sticthed him up and hell be in bed resting for a couple weeks
but we were able to give him a blessing which is always a spiritual experience!
In the afternoon we went and tried to visit some people and were able to visit a
couple more people and we ended off the day pretty well!

Sunday was alright i
guess! Its always a bummer when you go try to pick up the investigators and take
them to church and they dant go and you get to church and none of your
investigators is there.. Its really a bummer but all we can do is keep helping
them! So church went pretty well and the ward council afterwards was a lot
better this week which was cool! After church in the afternoon we went out
proselyting but without any luck at all! It was just not our day on Sunday! We
werent able to get bery much done but hopefully next Sunday will be
better!

So right now were working
hard even though theres no water and were struggling helping our investigators
progress but we have faith that in the near future they will be able to
progress! I know that this is the greatest and most important work on this earth
and im greatful to be a part of it! Love you all!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Well hope you all had a good week! Sorry if its kind of short but the internet is really slow here!!

Anyways so Monday was a good day as usual! We went to a members house and we made some hamburgers and they were pretty good! They weren't as good as In-N-Out but they werent too shabby! Then we came back to Morrope and wrote and went out visiting a couple people without too much luck.. This week we had some goals to do a lot more contacts which is just like knocking on doors or stopping people in the street to share a principle about the gospel and try to make an appointment so on Monday we started off by doing a couple of contacts that night!

Tuesday we had the district meetings in the morning and we analyzed our goals and i gave a lesson a little bit about faith and i feel like it went really well and i personally was able to learn a lot more about faith that what i had previously known! After the meetings we came back and had lunch which was just the usual rice and chicken but Ive kind of gotten used to it by know and its not that bad.. After lunch we went out proselyting and it was kind of a hard day because we literally got into nobody's house!?! We walked around doing contacts almost all day because all of our appointments fell through! Man did my feet hurt!

Wednesday morning we went out and visited a recent convert named Maria Bances and it was pretty cool! We talked a little bit about Jesus Christ and is Resurrection! This week that has been a big focus for us and it was really cool being able to focus on Jesus Christ even though we do it all the time! Then we did some more contacts and in the afternoon we went out with a member named Alex and it ended up being a really good day!! We were able to visit five different people or families with him! Some of them were new people too which was awesome!! Wednesday ended up being one of the best days of this week besides the fact that the water in all of Morrope went out on Wednesday! It had really gone out on Monday but since there was a tank on top of out house it lasted until Wednesday... but the pump that takes the water to the whole town broke down and so we have been without water for almost a week now and are having to take showers with buckets and use our water very sparingly... Its really a bummer and its very uncomfortable because we don't get very much water to use... Why cant the water just come back!!

Thursday was a sweet day too! We didn't go out with a member but we did do a lot of contacts and some other lessons with some new people too! We are really trying to find a lot more new people right now because we don't really have very many people to teach right now so it was cool to find a couple new people!

Friday morning we had weekly planning but during weekly planning i started to feel a little sick and after lunch i took my temperature and i ended up having a fever but we still went out proselyting because we needed to meet our goals and we also had an activity with the branch but when we got to the activity i started feeling worse so we went back to the room and i ended up throwing up and it went downhill from there.. All Friday night i felt horrible and Saturday morning too! Saturday afternoon i felt a tiny bit better so we went down to Lambayeque to watch conference and we got to watch it in English which was awesome but i didn't feel very good so i didn't get as much out of it as normal... Sunday i felt quite a bit better but my stomach didn't feel the best yet and i didn't feel like eating anything but a hamburger... So ya i didn't feel the greatest these past couple of days but i feel better now!

So this week went more or less well with a couple of downs.. No water and being sick at the same time! Its a tricky thing being sick and not having water! Anyways im sure this week will be a lot better! I know the Apostles and Prophets are called by God and I'm so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ! Love you all!!